1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to reproduction apparatus operable in both copier and printer modes such as, for example, electrophotographic copier/printers.
2. Background Art
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,105,283, description is provided of an electrophotographic reproduction apparatus that is operable in both copier and printer modes. As used herein, the term xe2x80x9ccopierxe2x80x9d is meant to refer to apparatus arranged for reading the image information on an original document sheet and for reproducing such image information on a receiver or copy sheet, which is a xe2x80x9chard copy.xe2x80x9d The term xe2x80x9cprinterxe2x80x9d is meant to refer to apparatus arranged for receiving image information in other than hard copy form, referred to as electronic form, and for reproducing such image information on a receiver sheet. The term xe2x80x9coriginalxe2x80x9d is meant to refer to image information to be reproduced, whether such image information is in hard copy, electronic or other form. The term xe2x80x9creproduction apparatusxe2x80x9d is meant to refer to copiers and/or printers. The term xe2x80x9cprint jobxe2x80x9d is used in its conventional sense and implies operation of the apparatus in a printer mode to produce one or more hard copy sets of data in accordance with predetermined parameters requested for producing said copy sets. The data may represent one or more pages of data. The term xe2x80x9ccopy jobxe2x80x9d is used in its conventional sense and implies operation of the apparatus in a copier mode to produce one or more hard copy sets from a job requiring copying of an original document having one or more hard copy pages in accordance with predetermined parameters requested for producing said copy sets.
A typical job represents a request to either print or copy a page or a sequence of pages. Where it represents a sequence of pages, the pages will be collated as a group or output finished such as by stapling.
In known copier/printer reproduction apparatus, a problem is associated with management of the copier and printer functions since only one marking engine is available for reproducing the information on the copy sheets. More specifically, a job image buffer memory is available as an interface to a writer for storing in rasterized form the information to be printed or copied. The buffer may, for example, have a capacity for storing image data for printing or copying about 50 pages. While this is more than enough necessary for most reproduction job, at times there are jobs that require about this amount of memory or more. It would also be desirable to allow for interruption of print jobs in progress to allow access to the apparatus for reproduction of a copy job. In order to provide for such interrupts, an apparatus might provide for one print job to be sent to the job image buffer at a time. Upon an interrupt, an original document may be scanned in and copied. However, operation of the printer/copier in this manner as will be shown, limits the productivity thereof.
It is therefore an objective of the invention to provide a copier/printer apparatus with improved productivity.
In accordance with one aspect of the invention, there is provided a copier/printer reproduction apparatus, comprises scanning means for scanning document originals containing visible image information to be reproduced and generating first signals representing the image information of a copy job; second input means for inputting electronic image information in the form of second signals for production of an image as a print job; buffer means responsive respectively to either said first and said second signals for storing respective third signals and fourth signals representing respectively the information on said document originals and said electronic image information; means for creating an interrupt operation for allowing said scanning means to be operative for scanning document originals while a current production job from said second input means is incomplete; a marking engine means for producing hard copies in response respectively either to said third signals and fourth signals; and control means, responsive to a time of day or other criteria of operation such as backlog or coding of a print job for inhibiting operation of the interrupt operation while allowing the marking engine to produce hard copies of print jobs from said second input means.
In accordance with another aspect of the invention, a copier/printer reproduction apparatus comprises scanning means for scanning document originals containing visible image information to be reproduced and generating first signals representing the image information of a copy job; second input means for inputting electronic image information in the form of second signals for production of an image as a print job; buffer means responsive to said first or second signals for storing third signals and fourth signals representing respectively the information on said document originals or said electronic image information; setup means operative during production of a current print job for entering setup parameters for a copy job; marking engine means for producing copy in response respectively to either of said third signals and fourth signals; and control means, responsive to a time of day or a parameter representing backlog of print jobs or coding of a print job for generating a signal inhibiting operation of the setup means while allowing the marking engine to produce copy of print jobs from said second input means.